Alex Rodriguez will always have an asterisk accompany his name in Major League Baseball's history books for his repeated involvement with performance-enhancing drugs.
That doesn't mean his 3,000th-hit baseball from Friday night is any less valuable. And if there's anybody who realizes that it's Zack Hample, the fan who caught the ball Friday night. Hample has caught more than 8,000 baseballs in games since 1990 and has even authored a book on the art of hauling them in.
So, when he caught A-Rod's 3,000th-hit baseball Friday night and the New York Yankees offered him a king's ransom list of items in exchange for the historic ball, Hample wasn't trying to hear it. According to a report, Hample says the Yankees offered him everything from a seat in their Legends section (tickets running up to $1,500 per game), a personal meeting with Rodriguez, his own press conference with the media, appearances on their YES Network throughout this season and a donation to be made in his name by the franchise.
Even though the package was luxurious, Hample didn't enterain it.
"As far as we're concerned, we have done everything we could to engage this guy in some type of discussion about some type of exchange," Yankees spokesperson Jason Zillo told ESPN. "He had none of anything we were saying. He wouldn't engage at all."
A-Rod's 500th home run ball fetched $105,000 and SCP Auctions told ESPN that his 3,000th-hit ball is worth upwards of $50,000.
We'd take the money over the Yankees' perks, too.
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